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I feel like I just watched a spring practice that was pretending to be a title game. It will remain sweet for Philadelphia fans forever, but, outside of that, I don’t think it’s going to be particularly memorable for anyone else outside of that one insanely great TD pass to Nick Foles.

It occurred to me that four teams have won their first (and only) title since 2002; Tampa (2002), New Orleans (2009), Seattle (2013), and Philadelphia (obviously 2017). It also occurs to me we’ve been in a run of generally very exciting and fun Super Bowls; there have been a few less-than-exciting games, such as Indianapolis/Chicago in the rain or Denver dismantling the Panthers due to a combination of great defense, utter lack of coaching adjustments by the Panthers, and Mike Remmers cosplaying as a turnstile. Outside of those, almost all of them have been good . . . except for three of those four first-time wins. Now, Saints-Colts? That was a decent game. Wasn’t really great, and largely very memorable because of a gutsy onside kick and the whole Katrina Redemption aspect, but it wasn’t actively bad. The others?

2002—Jon Gruden had obviously been the coach of the Raiders the prior year, and had created a set of plays that helped take a career journeyman like Rich Gannon and turn him into the league MVP that year. Unfortunately for the Raiders, Gruden became the coach of the Buccaneers, their opponent the next year. Even more unfortunately, Raiders coach Bill Callahan didn’t bother to change any of the play calls. At all. Which, even all these years later, sounds so stupid it hurts to even type it (it’s in the Holy Trinity of Bad Super Bowl coaching, along with Rivera’s failure to adjust his offensive scheme vs. the Broncos and Mike Martz in that first Patriots win). Add to that the fact the Buccaneers were fielding one of the singly best defenses in NFL history (Football Outsiders has stats back to 1986, and still rank the ’02 Bucs as the best passing defense they’ve ever measured), and this game was ugly, brutal, and hard to watch. Except for me.

2013—One play into the game, Seattle was up 2-0, and it went downhill from there. Seattle didn’t even need an offense; Wilson had barely 200 yards passing, and the leading rusher was Percy Harvin with 45 yards. It was a defensive clinic on how to stop a truly great offense.

2017—Philadelphia and New England combine for 1,151 yards. The game featured one defensive play, which essentially sealed the game. I’m sure there’s extra enjoyment for some people out of this one because the Patriots lost and everybody hates the Patriots, but . . . this game sucked. Eagles fans will remember this one as fondly as I do the 2002 game. Everyone else will hope whoever shows up next year figures out how to tackle or at least in-frame with a receiver when they’re catching the ball. There were 42 first downs from passing alone. UGH.

2002, 2013, and 2017 feel like the kind of games only a mother/fan of the teams in question could love. If the Bills, Browns, Bengals, Titans, Jaguars, Chargers, Panthers, Falcons, Lions, or Cardinals even win a Super Bowl, let’s hope they provide us something a bit more memorable than the other first-time winners.

No, there was not a mistake in that list above; if there’s one thing the Football Gods have been making clear for decades now, it’s that the Minnesota Vikings are never going to win a Super Bowl.

So we’re on to the offseason now; I’m going to let this thread run for a while, and then start a pre-draft thread later when we get a bit closer. Because reasons.

"I would be insulted if I could figure out exactly what it means."
--*Legion*

I think that Vinatieri comparison is a good one for Janikowski. When not kicking 50 yarders, Janikowski was as good as Vinatieri.

Don't get me wrong, Janikowski had some sh*t years and clearly was kept in Oakland because of his draft stock and because he's a legend. For a decade, Janikowski was the team.

Janikowski was THE team because the team was run by a senile idiot who would have drafted a box of donuts if you'd tied it to a car going fast enough, and there's no way Zombie Al was going to let one of his first-round picks slip from his claws if he could help it. And Janikowski doesn't get dinged for taking lots of long kicks; he gets dinged because he's supposedly a long-range kicker, and he was never any good at long kicks.

Stat-wise, he's got some awful stretches Janikowski was sub-75% each year from 2005-2007, and got up to a whopping 80% in 2008. Are you honestly telling me that, had he been some UDFA instead of a first-round pick, that he'd have stuck around through that? His career is a case of a team refusing to admit a mistake and sticking with it.

"I would be insulted if I could figure out exactly what it means."
--*Legion*

I don't think you're looking at the stats in context though. Janikowski was regularly asked to kick longer FGs than most other kickers. I still can't find a detailed breakdown of his kicks, but I found something even better at Sporting Charts:

Janikowski was routinely attempting and making longer kicks than all these kickers. He's the blue line. His sh*t FG% is a reflection of that.

(Vinatieri for some reason breaks this chart, so I couldn't pull him in.)

NSMike wrote:

How did I live before digital distribution of old, cheap games?

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

You did live before digital distribution of old, cheap games. Now you just play games.

Analysis of expected vs. actual field goal success rates per stadium. Guess which one ranked worst?

We can see it in Janikowski's own career FG rate, which jumps from 78.5% at home to 82.3% on the road. Those other kickers Garion mentioned, virtually all of them had a 2-3% home field advantage. Adam Vinatieri has a nearly 4% home field bump (built primarily during his Indy years, as he has a 9% success rate advantage in retro-roof stadiums vs. open air).

AJ McCarron has won a grievance against the Cincinnati Bengals, an is now an unrestricted free agent.

The grievance revolved around the status of McCarron's 2014 season. He successfully argued that the injury he suffered was not a non-football injury. The Bengals had put him on the NFI list, which until this ruling meant that 2014 did not count as an accrued season, making McCarron fall under the limit for unrestricted free agency.

Analysis of expected vs. actual field goal success rates per stadium. Guess which one ranked worst?

We can see it in Janikowski's own career FG rate, which jumps from 78.5% at home to 82.3% on the road. Those other kickers Garion mentioned, virtually all of them had a 2-3% home field advantage. Adam Vinatieri has a nearly 4% home field bump (built primarily during his Indy years, as he has a 9% success rate advantage in retro-roof stadiums vs. open air).

None of them had a 4% home disadvantage like Seabass.

82.3% would slide him up 14 spots to #30 overall. Listen, I'm not arguing he was a BAD kicker. I'm just saying he wasn't a GOOD kicker. He's a franchise icon because a fat kicker missing long FGs was literally the only memorable thing about the Raiders for about a decade. He was comic relief in an era of unmitigated awfulness, and that's why he kept his job, and there's really no reason beyond that why he lasted that long in Oakland.

He was an OK kicker who stuck around because of draft position. That's about it.

"I would be insulted if I could figure out exactly what it means."
--*Legion*

OverTheCap with a rundown of Philly's 2018 offseason outlook, which hits on why I think Nick Foles won't be on the roster come September. (TL;DR: even after the easy cuts and potential contract restructures, they'll be so hard up against the cap that they either have to start making more painful cuts, and/or allow players they would want to keep walk in free agency, options that would both sting a roster that would otherwise be well-placed to compete for a repeat title,)

OverTheCap with a rundown of Philly's 2018 offseason outlook, which hits on why I think Nick Foles won't be on the roster come September. (TL;DR: even after the easy cuts and potential contract restructures, they'll be so hard up against the cap that they either have to start making more painful cuts, and/or allow players they would want to keep walk in free agency, options that would both sting a roster that would otherwise be well-placed to compete for a repeat title,)

I agree.. I can't see how they keep Foles on the roster unless they don't feel confident in Wentz ability to come back from the injury in time to play meaningful football in 2018. I've read that some fears are that he won't be 100% until Nov-Dec. If you have to start the year with the idea that you might need a QB for 10 games it seems logical you keep Foles. That being said on his way out DiFilippo praised Nate Sudfeld highly so there is an off chance they feel confident enough to go into 2018 with Nate as their fill in QB until Wentz is healthy. There is a small part of me that feels the Eagles want to move Foles regardless to avoid any sort of controversy if Foles goes say 10-0 in fill in duty and Wentz struggles right away coming back.

The biggest concerns are Bradham IMO he's the one potential UFA that you really want to keep but not sure how they can afford to make it happen. I think VaiTai has proven himself enough (even though many here feel he's a joke) that I would tag him the starter unless Jason Peters agrees to a cap friendly 1 year deal to come back for his retirement year.

Jordan Hicks is often injured so even though he's back they will need to address inside linebacker in a meaningful way (that means a rookie) since they can't realistically afford a FA unless its a veteran or someone coming off an injury season looking to prove themselves.

I think the rest of the FA are probably not going to be resigned. I think they let Torrey Smith go and try and get Celek to agree to a 1 year vet minimum deal or he walks/retires. I would love to see them try and resign Burton but if he really gets a 3 year/$20M deal from someone then that won't happen which leaves them thin on quality TE's.

I think they will restructure Cox in a way that pushes some cap money into 2019/2020 to try and make a serious run this year.. but with the whole Wentz injury uncertainty I kinda think they should be more concerned with cap in 2019 as well.. so that might not work out for them.

Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarterDelivering Truth while the 10% deliver lies.

Yeah, Philly is for sure priced out of Burton. He's one of the top TEs on the market this FA season.

Vaitai improved quite a bit in the second half of the season so he stopped being a liability on every play. I'm not sure I'd want him starting on my team, but with the lack of NFL ready OL coming in from the draft you don't have many choices.

NSMike wrote:

How did I live before digital distribution of old, cheap games?

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

You did live before digital distribution of old, cheap games. Now you just play games.

This was the QB throwing competition back during Pro Bowl week. I was going to post it then, but forgot about it.

Obviously, this isn't super serious competition, but when I watched it on TV, it jumped out to me just how much Carr's arm talent shone compared to the others. The ball velocity is just effortless. Goff threw pretty well too. Alex Smith's throws just look labored. And most interesting, Russell Wilson's throws exhibited a significant dip during his wind-up, which is something that actually showed up on tape a lot this season. It's something that's always been there to an extent, but it became much more prominent this past season, and it was odd to see it so plain as day even during this skills competition.

I've started watching video for draft season, and one player who is very interesting to me so far is Lamar Jackson. I think whatever team ends up taking him is going to be pleasantly surprised at the caliber of player they get from who will likely be the 5th quarterback taken off the board.

Jackson is very good in the pocket. He's absurdly comfortable with pressure in his face, something that young QBs often struggle with. He's probably more comfortable with throwing while having a lineman pushed into him than any draft prospect QB that I've seen in recent memory. His movement in the pocket is very economical, no wasted movement. Reminded me a lot of Teddy Bridgewater, which probably isn't surprising because Louisville, but obviously Jackson is an explosive run threat that Teddy B wasn't.

For all his rushing attempts, though, Jackson doesn't show on tape as a run-first QB. Rather, he ran on a whole lot of designed runs. But on pass plays, he showed extremely high levels of patience before running. Far from bailing out of pockets early, he slid and reset himself in pockets as a matter of routine.

His receivers did him no favors. His video showed NFL throw after NFL throw that his receivers put hands on and then let hit the turf.

He does have a recurring accuracy issue that comes down almost 100% to footwork. His footwork is excellent when taking a 3-or-more step drop and setting up in the pocket, but on the shotgun snaps where he would take a 1-step drop and throw, he routinely put his feet in bad position and threw from a poor base. Basically he has a tendency for his feet to get too close together, and while longer drops get his feet moving and helps him get them into wider base, the quick shotgun snap throws didn't allow him enough movement to get them apart. Something coaching is going to hammer him on when he gets to the NFL.

I think the most likely landing spots for Foles are Arizona and Minnesota.

Minnesota if John DeFilippo thinks Foles is a better option for his offense than re-signing one of the guys Minnesota had on the roster last year.

Arizona otherwise, as they're not in a position to draft one of the top QBs, and between the fact that Larry Fitzgerald is back for another year, and the fact that the team was 8-8 last season and thus not too far from contention, I think Arizona looks for a veteran that won't be coming in with health issues. That could put them in the Cousins chase, but all reports seem to indicate they're looking for a shorter term thing.

Interesting side note with Arizona: damn near their whole roster hits free agency in 2019. They have by far the fewest players under contract after this upcoming season. No doubt there will be some extensions handed out before the season starts, but that goes for every other team too. That means they're a team whose current window is closing and headed towards a major rebuild, but with their defense plus Fitz and a returning David Johnson, they're arguably a QB away from competing in 2018. They need someone who can play now.

That's been said by a few other people, but the reasoning Polian gave is what's crazy: "Short and a little bit slight".

Lamar Jackson is 6'3". Also, 211 pounds.

You might be able to argue 211 is a tad "slight" for a QB (3 pounds less than Kirk Cousins' Combine weigh-in, though oddly both NFL.com and the Washington football team's home page list Cousins at 202 pounds now).

But in no sense can you argue 6'3" for a quarterback is short. So unless Louisville's overstating his height by 3 inches or something...